


Eighteen Months

by ivorygates



Series: A Mirror For Observers [2]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: A Mirror For Observers, Look what I found, Self-Indulgent, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-22
Updated: 2009-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-12 20:04:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7947235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scenes from a life interrupted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eighteen Months

**Author's Note:**

> This is a series of scenes for A MIRROR FOR OBSERVERS, which aren't in the story for...reasons? I don't even remember now. So ... spoilers for that story arc. And probably, well, pretty barking incomprehensible if you aren't reading that. I'm not saying this to make you go read that. I mean, MIRROR runs 729 pages. I'd probably have to give you candy, chocolates, and a ring first.
> 
> Anyway...

_Snapshots from a life interrupted…_

ONE:

"Sammy used to take me riding on her motorcycle. Whichever one was working at the time."

She's speaking Dutch. Literally.

"Sam offered. I didn't accept."

He replies in Afrikaans. It's a game they play. Take a language, reply in its cousin, down through the many languages they speak. She never uses a language he doesn't know. Unless she forgets, and she counts that as a forfeit, even though it isn't really. Will she stay with Afrikaans, or move on to Swahili?

"Why not? We had so much fun," she says wistfully. But he's wrong about both choices. She replies in Omotik, an obscure sub-Saharan language related to both Arabic and Egyptian. And still a fair choice; able to claim nearly as close a linguistic relationship to Afrikaans as Dutch can.

"It's not the kind of thing I do with Sam," he answers, sticking with Omotik. He doesn't get a chance to speak it that often; he could use the practice. "Why don't you talk to her? She'd like to take you riding."

"Not with this Sam."

She's switched languages again, still playing fair, since the first one who makes a mistake loads the dishwasher. But the language she's picked is Hebrew, and for a linguist, that language has a special meaning beyond vowels and consonants, nouns and verbs.

It is a language that was dead, and came back from the dead.

The Sam Carter that Dani went motorcycle riding with is dead.

She will not come back from the dead.

#

TWO:

"Daniel, it's _burning!"_

Panicking, though she doesn't panic under enemy fire. In the midst of disaster a hundred thousand light years from home. Or under torture.

But nobody can be – should be – on their game all the time. You need time to be a normal person. Do normal things.

He rushes into his kitchen just in time to see the pan catch fire. She's trying to cook again. Frying eggs. In a pan far too large. They cooked dry and caught fire. He's not sure how she manages this. Anyone can cook eggs.

He swoops the pan off the stove, grabs a lid and smothers the flames.

"I really don't know why you can't cook," he says. Because he can cook. Cooks well. Likes to cook.

"I can cook on Chulak," she says sulkily. She lifts the potlid cautiously. A thin wisp of greasy smoke coils out. Situation under control.

"They eat most of their food raw on Chulak."

"I'll buy you a new pan."

"Yeah, you probably will." He'll see if he can save this one first.

"You said I could make breakfast."

"Not set fire to my kitchen."

But his tone is fond.

He knows she can't cook, just as she knows he can.

Mirrors.

Not the kind that reflect. The magic kind. The ones that show you things you never expected to see.

"I think that was the last of the eggs. You want to go out for breakfast?"

He checks the refrigerator, does a quick inventory.

"I'll make waffles, if you're good."

She doesn't bother to make the obvious rejoinder. They've got all weekend. Assuming neither of them is called back to The Mountain to save the world.

"I even promise to stop cooking."

"Very good."

#

THREE:

His piano was one of the things he lost when he died. He never bothered to replace it. He doesn't have time to play much these days, and too good an ear to be satisfied with his own out-of-practice fumblings.

But they're passing a music store on one of their downtown rambles. There's a piano rolled out onto the street to tempt passers-by. Her face lights up. She sits down, starts to play.

Nothing he expected. Ragtime.

She's as out-of-practice as he is. But the music is more forgiving than the classical pieces he prefers.

Of course she plays. Their mother was their first teacher.

"Come on," she says, moving over to make room for him.

He shakes his head.

She picks out a few bars of 'Moonlight Sonata' invitingly. Simple. Looks hopeful.

He gives in.

They play for almost an hour, drawing an audience. It comes back to him more easily than he thought it would. Simple four-hand pieces, for teaching children. Their past. But they sound impressive.

She played piano a lot in college. He did too. But she played for other people, and he played for himself.

Both ways of being alone.

#

FOUR:

They were supposed to spend the day together.

Plans change.

SG-1 was supposed to be back yesterday.

They're still offworld.

It will work out.

He'll phone her cell when he's back.

She may be back in her office by the time he gets back.

Missions are like that.

She lets herself into the house, drops her bag by the door.

He's offered to clear a drawer for her, but she's said no. She doesn't know why. She has a shelf in the refrigerator; that's as much intimacy as she's ready for. It's for the beer. He doesn't like beer, though he'll drink it occasionally. He keeps it for her. Also Scotch.

She knows the wines he likes, but thinks wine is really a pointless exercise in subtlety. She's particular about Scotch, and beer. Wine? There's red and there's white, and they all pretty much taste the same. Still, she can read labels. And is willing to indulge him.

She checks the fishtank first. Nothing floating on top. Temperature good. She'll check the Ph levels later, see if any chemicals need to be added. It's self-cleaning, pretty much, and the filters don't need to be changed for another two months. Feeding can wait until tonight.

They spend a lot more time here than at her apartment. It's closer to The Mountain, but that isn't the reason. Nor is it because he has more square footage.

This is a home. Her apartment isn't. After more than two years it is still only a place where someone sleeps. An extended closet.

She can't go home. But she can't – quite – make the emotional leap to make this world home.

She presses her hand against the side of the tank. The fish swim over, nosing at it curiously.

They live behind glass.

She lives behind glass.

Sleeping Beauty, trapped in a glass coffin.

Who is there to make her real?

The sleeping princess is supposed to awaken with a kiss.

Daniel has done far more than kiss her.

Jack had never kissed her.

Would probably never have considered kissing her.

Can never consider kissing her now, because he's dead. Along with Sammy and Mr. T.

She sees their analogs almost every day. Likes them a lot.

Not the same.

Never the same.

She walks away from the fishtank, goes into the kitchen. Starts coffee.

They are equally – identically - particular about coffee, when they have a choice, although they will both drink anything with caffeine in it.

How to be real? Now there's a question. Jesting Pilate only asked what Truth was. Reality is a more complicated matter. Counting her own, this is the fourth Reality she's been in. That makes defining Reality a little difficult.

If she knew the answer, would it make a difference? Yes? No? Maybe?

She really does love the work she does. It's what keeps her going. Some days, some weeks, she can forget all the rest.

_"I can't forgive myself. But some days I can forget."_

Jack said that about Charlie's death. She didn't really understand it at the time.

Now she does.

They died on Kelowna. She was supposed to have died with them. She didn't want to die, doesn't want to be dead now. Didn't want to die on Abydos in the first place, when Jack brought the bomb through with him to blow up the Stargate.

But it's all so tangled and complicated, that some days, when she's tired, she just thinks that it would have been so much simpler if she didn't have to make the daily choice to be alive. Or… not choice. She's not suicidal. But a recognition that she _is_ alive, and in some cosmic sense, she shouldn't be.

If things had been left to run their course the four of them would still be together.

She would be with Jack.

A sleep and a forgetting. Would death – permanent death – be like that?

Everything would at least be settled. She wouldn't be caught _between,_ still trying to figure out how to get … somewhere.

There is no going home. She keeps trying to accept that.

Jack – her Jack - won't let her. She won't give up on him, even though he's dead.

They never gave up on each other.

She's still SG-1, even if she's the only one who knows it.

Her cellphone rings. She fishes it out of her pocket. Checks the Caller ID.

Daniel.

Relief floods her, though she's sure she wasn't worried.

"You're late."

"We're back. Where are you?"

"Your place. Coffee's on. Come home."

"Soon."

###


End file.
